Passports, visas, medicals; just some of the things to consider when mobilising international staff.
An overview of validity of training and competency ensures the right person is selected for the job and the intricacies of flights, transfers and accommodation ensure that the right person arrives at the right time.
This tangled web of information is often held in a variety of applications which is a challenge for many project managers and coordinators – and that’s when things are going to plan. Unforeseen travel disruptions, civil unrest and industrial accidents require easily accessible information which is available 24/7.
Finding this information, and ensuring its accuracy, can tangle the web further. It is ultimately the project’s safe and timely delivery that matters to the client, so how you gather and store this information can be the difference between being the spider or the fly. Are you the one in control, or are you trapped in the web?
Having worked in the international oil and gas industry and understanding first-hand the challenges of mobilising staff to remote and challenging locations, Jane Harvey’s background includes engineering, consultancy and project management for large service contractors. A challenging part of this journey was mobilising teams to start-up projects in remote locations such as Southern Oman, Iraq and Kurdistan.
From this experience it was clear that mobilisation isn’t solely a concern for HR or logistics teams, its wider impact directly affects project delivery and ultimately the bottom line. Having staff information stored in a variety of formats poses challenges in extracting accurate information when needed; in day-to-day logistics, and even more so in an emergency.
It was clear to Jane that a joined-up approach to mobilisation was required, and her appreciation of these inherent challenges meant that she was well-placed to empathise and offer a practical solution.
Working with friend and colleague Nichola Collinson, who has spent the last 18 months mobilising in and out of Iraq for a major international operator, the pair brought together their experiences to identify the challenges from different angles, thus developing Akrugo (pronounced a-crew-go), a comprehensive and holistic approach to address the challenges of staff mobilisation.
Akrugo offers users one platform to store information, ensuring its accuracy and timeliness, which can be accessed simultaneously by multiple users. The information stored is bespoke, with company, project, or region-specific information. It is this tailored approach that sets Akrugo apart. From personal experience, Jane and Nichola appreciate that every project is different, and an easy to use and flexible approach to staff mobilisation was not available in the market place.
As the global price per barrel of oil drops, the international oil and gas community looks for evermore innovative and efficient approaches to solve real-life challenges. Akrugo makes sense of the tangled web of information to ensure timely and safe project delivery, specific to the needs of every client.
